The Middle East Quartet's call on Israel to freeze all settlement activity in East Jerusalem "distances" hopes for renewed peace talks, the Israeli Foreign Minister said on Friday.
"The Quartet's statement ignores the experiences of the past 16 years and does not take into account that peace must be constructed from the ground up, with practical actions on the ground," Avigdor Lieberman said according to Israel's Ynetnews service.
"You cannot force peace artificially, in an unrealistic timetable," he added.
"Such announcements only distance the goal of achieving a true settlement between Israel and Palestinians by giving the Palestinian side the false impression that feet dragging and refusal to sit at the negotiations table under false pretence will bring them closer to their goal."
The statement comes after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the Quartet's special representative Tony Blair met for the Middle East Quartet of international mediators in Moscow earlier on Friday.
Lavrov said the Quartet would seek to resume Middle East peace efforts, expecting Israel and the Palestinian authorities to move towards proximity talks.
The Quartet condemned recent plans by Israeli to build 1,600 housing units for Jewish families in the disputed area of East Jerusalem and demanded that all settlement activity be frozen.
"The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth, dismantle outposts erected since March 2001 and to refrain from demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem," Ban said.
Chief Palestinian presidential advisor Sahib Oreikat welcomed the news. He called for the creation of a "surveillance mechanism installed by the Quartet to make sure that Israel does effectively halt completely all settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem," according to the BBC.
TEL AVIV, March 19 (RIA Novosti)
